Winter 2009

 

 

HSTAS 552

 

Chinese Sources for the History of the Song Period

 

 

 

Instructor:  Patricia Ebrey

Office Hours:  Tuesday 1:30 to 3:30, 112A Smith

Email:  ebrey@u.washington.edu

 

 

The goal of this course is to gain a practical ability in doing research in Chinese sources in order to answer historical questions.  Each session we will take a type of source, look at examples of it in the library (use Yves Hervout, A Sung Bibliography, for titles), consider indexes and other reference aids (see http://sunsite.utk.edu/songtool/browse.html), consider historiographical uses and limitations, and do some communal reading of a sample text distributed in advance, as well as sight-reading of short samples students bring to class, prepared to translated for the class. 

 

Each student will do some sort of project, depending on interests and background.  It can range from a study of an important text (editions, history, value, etc.), to an annotated translation that uses the available reference tools, to an investigation of the sources available on a particular topic, to a critique of the primary sources used in a book or substantial article.  Proposals for projects should be submitted by the fifth week.

 

Grading: Weekly assignments and participation: 70%

               Final project: 30%

 

 

 

Week 1            1/8       Introduction: Finding the information you need in diverse sources

 

Week 2            1/15     Narrative history

 

Background reading: Charles Hartman, “Bibliographic Notes on Sung Historical Works: Topical Narratives from the Long Draft Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror that Aids Administration (Hsü tzu-chih t’ung-chien ch’ang-pien chi-shih pen-mo 續資治通鑑長編紀事本末) by Yang Chung-liang 楊仲良 and Related Texts,” Journal of Sung-Yuan Studies 28 (1998):177-200.

 

Texts:   Song shi 22.417 and Xuzizhi tongjian changbian shibu 51.1a-7b for the 12th month of 1125.

 

Assignment:  Compare the treatment of some other event in two narrative histories.

 

Week 3            1/22     Biographical sources

 

Background reading, D. C. Twitchett, “Chinese Biographical Writing,” in Historians of China and Japan, ed. W. G. Beasley and E. G. Pulleyblank. London: Oxford University Press, 1961.

 

Another useful secondary source: Angela Schottenhammer, “Characteristics of Song Epitaphs,” in Dieter Kuhn, ed. Burial in Song China (Heidelberg: Editions Forum, 1994).

 

Text: Chen Liang ji  23.362.

 

Assignment:  Look up someone in Chang Bide’s index of Song biographical materials and check how many of the sources are available in our library. Bring one with you.

 

Week 4            1/29     The Song, Liao, and Jin standard histories. 

 

Background reading: Hok-lam Chan, “Chinese Official Historiography at the Yuan Court: the Composition of the Liao, Chin, and Sung Histories,” in John D. Langlois, Jr., ed. China under Mongol rule (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981), pp. 56-106, 467-468

 

Text: Liao shi 53.877-78.

 

Assignment: Survey the contents of one of the “treatise” 志 chapters of one of the 3 histories, then use the online index to these histories to find how much information on some topic is also included elsewhere in the history.

 

Week 5            2/5  Diaries, letters, inscriptions, and other true primary sources 

 

Background reading:  Linda Walton, “’Diary of a Journey to the North’: Lou Yue’s Beixing rilu,” Journal of Song-Yuan Studies 32 (2002).

 

Another useful secondary source: Valerie Hansen, "Inscriptions:  Historical Sources for the Sung," JSYS 23 (1993)

 

Text:  Zeng Bu yilu 9.3a-4a.

 

Assignment:  Look through a major collection of published inscriptions to see what sort of inscriptions it has for the Song 

 

PROJECT PROPOSALS DUE

 

Week 6            2/12  Collections of Anecdotes

 

Background reading: Alister David Inglis, Hong Mai’s Record of the Listener and Its Song Dynasty Context. SUNY Press, 2006. Chapters 1, 2, and 5.

 

Text: Yijianzhi zhikui 5.1261.

 

Assignment: Bring in one of the works in the series Tangsong shiliao biji congkan series, ready to translate a short passage.

 

Week 7            2/19     Regional histories/gazetteers

 

Background reading: James Hargett. 1996. “Song Dynasty Local Gazetteers and Their Place in the History of Difangzhi Writing. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 56.2: 405-42.

 

Text: Jingding Jiankang zhi 28.3b-4a.

 

Assignment:  Compare the treatment of some topic in at least three Song or Yuan period gazetteers

 

Week 8            2/26     The Song hui yao

 

Text: Song hui yao Chongru 5.26a-27a.

 

Assignment:  Choose an issue of historical interest and investigate what kinds of information on it are contained in the SHY

 

Week 9            3/5       Daoist Sources

 

            Background reading Strickmann, Michel. 1978. “The Longest Taoist Scripture.” History of Religions 17.3-4: 331-54.

 

Text: Daozang vol. 30: Shangqing lingbao dafa 27, pp. 30:900-901.

 

Assignment:  Find a text in the Daoist canon and introduce it, drawing on the rReference work: The Daoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang, ed. Kristofer Schipper and Franciscus Verellen. University of Chicago Press, 2004.

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Week  10         3/12     Presentations

 

WRITTEN VERSIONS OF PROJECTS DUE